The Kodari
The Kodari are an old race, one that reached the height of their power long ago and now sit on the verge of annihilation. Their civilization was birthed on the same continent as the orks, though they certainly pre-date the titanic nation that now dominates the area. Organized into great insular hives, each a city and state in it’s own right, the Kodari are a race poorly understood by those who have contact with them, having little need or desire for either trade or diplomacy. To most, they are something of a ‘bogeyman‘; wandering into lands they have claimed is an invitation to death, and those who have done so and survived tell tales of dragonfly-winged demons that strike from the skies, killing with a touch and ignoring blows that would fell an armoured man. Society A hive is ruled by a singular queen, a massive grub like creature whose secretions are needed to stir a Kodari egg to hatching. The final authority on all matters, the queen determines the course of the hive - how many eggs of each caste to hatch, when and what to hunt for sustenance, where to search for sites suitable for a new hive. Her will is disseminated by the highest ranking members of each caste, the caste-masters, and carried out by the drones of the castes. There are three castes among the Kodari - the breeder caste, who lay the eggs that are then fertilized by the other castes and stirred to life by the queen; the soldier caste, who defend the hive and destroy its enemies; and the worker caste, who build and maintain the hive and its fungus farms and livestock. Rank amongst the castes is determined by mastery of their racial memory; those who are able to hold onto greater portions of past knowledge are given greater authority. They are insular by nature, considering anything that enters their territory to be an enemy. Enemies are, thankfully for those who accidentally wander into Kodari lands, given a single chance to remove themselves from the area. Those that fail to do so, or have the singularly poor judgement to draw a blade on the one delivering the ultimatum, find themselves quickly beset by the soldier caste - each of which is a match for a dozen trained soldiers. And once the Kodari reveal their resin blades, they deliver no mercy. Physical Characteristics There is significant variation between the various caste’s of the Kodari, each of them having been bred for different tasks. The caste most often seen by non-Kodari are the soldier caste, each born and bred solely for battle. Typically standing in the area of five feet in height, they have a humanoid form covered in chitin which is marked with a series of whorls and spirals that denote the individual’s age, lineage, and rank within the soldier caste; the more decorated the chitin, the higher ranking the Kodari. As might be expected in a genotype made for war, they possess a number of physical advantages over most other races; the typical soldier caste is stronger and hardier than the average human, with a reinforced exoskeleton and retractable resin arm-blades (which can be painfully regrown and reinforced with natural secretions over the course of several weeks or days depending on availability of food to fuel the resin growth) comparable to any forged arms and armour. Many lineages have additional adaptations for particular environments or forms of fighting, the most well-known and recognizable being the dragonfly-like wings of the Tritak, Tritan, and Tricha lines, though there are birth lines adapted to aquatic and subterranean warfare as well. The worker caste are roughly the same size as the soldier caste, with similar patterns on their chitin; the most notable difference is that the worker caste possess an additional pair of arms, smaller and weaker than their primary but extremely dextrous and suited to fine work. Like all Kodari, the worker caste are typically stronger and hardier than the average human, but they lack arm blades and have a much weaker exoskeleton than their soldier caste brethren. Some worker lineages have adaptations to specific tasks, like the climbing hooks of the Karkri line, who maintain the resin coated tunnels and caverns of the hives. The breeder caste are a barely sentient form of Kodari who share few physical characteristics with their brethren. They are large, grub-like creatures, perhaps ten feet long from maw to the end of their ovipositor; the queen is a mutation of the breeder caste, larger and vastly more intelligent. The breeder caste eat, sleep, and lay eggs which are fertilized by members of other castes and then stored in the heart of the hive to await awakening by the queen - unfertilized eggs will produce another breeder. ' Kodari Memory and the Written Word' The Kodari carry the memories of their race in their bones and blood, from the time of the first of their lineage right through to the current day. Of course, none but the Queen can access those memories freely - no normal mind is meant to hold and process such a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience. Instead, the Kodari use their written language as a method of selectively drawing forth thoughts and ideas from the past; the whorls that commemorate an ancient battle will actually bring forth the memories and experiences of the Kodari who were there. This knowledge is fleeting, fading back into the race memory when no longer being actively used. These memories are also used as training tools, with the young being exposed to the same glyphs over and over, until the experiences and memories they represent become ‘stuck’. In this way, they can learn quickly, with every new generation building upon the skills and knowledge of the past. The Way To the Kodari, ‘that’s just the way things are done’ isn’t simply a saying, it is a way of life. Creatures of order, they are bound by instinctive obedience to their superiors and a natural inclination to repetition, rote, and structure. For them, everything has been done before, and their racial memory contains the most efficient and proper method of dealing with any task or situation. Everything is covered by the way, from how and when one should rise in the morning, to which combination of oils and secretions is best to strengthen a section of hive wall, to which combat stance is best used against a left-handed spear-wielding minotaur. Certain portions of the way are more changeable than others, just as there are core ideas that haven’t changed since the Kodari first came into the world; a soldier that can’t adapt to changing opponents is a very dead soldier, but no Kodari would even think of disobeying their queen. As much as the way binds the Kodari together, it is also what has ultimately led to their current crisis. All Kodari will obey their queen without question, but a queen answers to none but the Makers, who have been gone from the world for countless years. Each hive claims what territory they need to support themselves and feel secure from attack; when a new queen is hatched (an exceptionally rare occurrence), she awakens a few hundred drones and leaves the territory of her ‘mother’, never to return - there can be no question of who to answer to in the way, and since all must obey the queen, there can be only one queen. When the hives came under concerted attack by the orks, they reacted as they always had - each hive dealing with any threat to itself, but paying no attention to the others - to enter a hive‘s territory is to be considered an enemy, and how could a Kodari be the enemy of a Kodari? In time, the orks learned to mass their strength against a single hive, assaulting in such overwhelming numbers that even the soldier caste, generally considered the finest warriors in the known world, could not hold against them. The Makers The identity of the progenitors of the Kodari, or even the fact that the Kodari did not evolve naturally, is known to a but a very learned few, and to the queens of that race, who simply think of them as ‘The Makers‘. They disappeared long ago, and if they queens know why, they aren’t telling.